


Easy Come, Easy Go (Little High, Little Low)

by jerseydevious



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, it's not just fluff it's fucking cotton candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:56:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: Bruce gets back from a bat-business trip with pneumonia, and it's a job for Robin.





	Easy Come, Easy Go (Little High, Little Low)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [audreycritter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/gifts).



> Don't look at me. Don't look at me. I'm turning in my angst card, I know. Jersey, in the fluff genre? It's more likely than you think.

“You sound real awful.”

 

Dick knew that he wasn’t supposed to surprise Bruce like that—Alfred made a big fuss, whenever Dick suggested a surprise birthday party, or when he wanted to try scaring Bruce by hiding behind the door. Dick wasn’t ever sure why, exactly, because every time he had tried to surprise Bruce, Bruce had remained as unflappable as the gargoyles that hung gloomily over Gotham’s gray gallows. Alfred always got a sour look to his mouth, though, when Dick said,  _ we could surprise him! It’s his halfway-to-his-birthday-birthday, we could just—they sell cakes at the store! _ or anything like it, so Dick refrained. 

 

But he couldn’t stop himself. Before he even knew, the words were out of his mouth and Bruce’s eyes, half-lidded, blinked as if they were covered in rust and focused on Dick, sharpening like a blade on a whetstone. 

 

“I’ll be in touch,” Bruce said, flatly, into the commlink in his ear. It was the kind of tone he used with people while he was working. Bruce pressed the comm once, and then dropped it in his lap. It was dark, but Dick could see his hands were bleeding. Thick vines of it, just spilling down his wrists.

 

Dick went beet-red, to the roots of his hair. “I didn’t—uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt, gosh, Bruce—”

 

“It’s fine,” Bruce interrupted. “Be more careful next time. What are you doing awake?”

 

Bruce really did sound awful. His voice was heavy and dry, and he was slumped against the couch in an awkward way, as if he didn’t care to adjust himself to be more comfortable, or he just couldn’t. He had a look about him that reminded Dick of a worn piece of paper, tearing along the seams of old folds.

 

“I heard somethin’,” Dick said. 

 

“I… broke a vase. I should—clean it up—” and then Bruce was trying to haul himself off the couch, but in the weak yellow light, Dick could see his elbow jerking like it was shaking. Bruce’s chest rattled like rocks in a soda can when he breathed.

 

“I’ll get it! I’ve got it, don’t worry! I’ll just scoop it up and—we’ll put it in a bag, an’ then Alfred can fix it all tomorrow. We can do it together! If you put paint in the glue, do you think the glue’ll be fun colors? It won’t just be  _ fixed, _ it’ll be  _ better, _ won’t it, B?”

 

Bruce looked at him in that way he did sometimes. It reminded Dick of how people looked at some of the sideshows, in the circus—full of wonder, afraid to touch. “You have school tomorrow,” Bruce said, quietly.

 

Dick coughed into his hand. “I just caught the…  _ I’m-really-not-faking-it _ flu? It’s so rare, you probably haven’t heard of it! But it’s super serious. Super duper serious.”

 

“Oh, no. This sounds dreadful. And what’s the treatment.”

 

Dick launched himself on the couch, pillowing into Bruce’s side. “I think this’ll fix it,” he said, grinning so wide he felt his cheeks might pop. He closed his eyes and squeezed Bruce’s middle, fisting his hands into Bruce’s soft, long sleeve shirt, letting go a breath that had been hovering at the bottom of his lungs since Bruce had been gone. “I think this’ll fight it off.”

 

With his ear pressed to Bruce’s chest, Dick could hear perfectly how Bruce’s breath skipped a cycle, and then the wetness thick beneath his ribs when he did finally breathe in again, slow and deep and stopping every so often like an old car engine. Bruce’s hand rose and squeezed Dick’s shoulder, and for a minute, Dick wondered if he really  _ was _ sick, if he were running a fever that would make touch feel hot and slimy, and then he remembered the blood. 

 

“How’d you mess up your hands,” Dick mumbled. If it were anything really serious, Bruce would’ve gone to Alfred first thing, instead of answering whatever bat-business call he’d been on.

 

“I broke the vase,” Bruce said, simply. He pulled his hand away from Dick’s arm and wiped it off on his slacks. “I… apologize.”

 

“D’you want me to go get you some gloves? I can get you some gloves!”

 

Bruce chuckled, which turned into a deep, aching cough that went on for a few minutes. Dick thumped his chest once, twice, and then said, “Gee, Bruce. Maybe I should go get Al. Does Al even know you’re back? Can I go get Al? You sound like a flounder with asthma. An octopus with a cold! By golly, Bruce, you sound like—”

 

“I’m not sure…” Bruce wheezed, “that octopus—get colds.”

 

“Then you sound like a garbage disposal someone went and stuck a fork in and then poured a bunch of tomato soup down it,” Dick said. After a moment’s consideration, he added: “With a cold.”

 

“Don’t make me laugh,” Bruce said, weakly. “Or I’ll—”

 

Bruce was cut off by another round of loud, squelching coughing, hands folded over his mouth. When he dropped his hands, he kept them cupped, and studied the inside of them sternly. The skin on Dick’s scalp tingled, and he patted over Bruce’s chest, as if there were a hidden stab wound somewhere he hadn’t seen in the dark. 

 

“That’s blood,” Dick said, quietly. “You’re—that’s blood. Y’could be hurt, could be, you’re—you’re real sick.”

 

“Would you,” Bruce rasped, between breaths. “Would you get Alfred, chum.”

 

Dick nodded, quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go—faster than a cheetah, faster than the Flash! I’ll be right back, just you wait, just ya—stay. There.”

 

Bruce smiled at him, and there was blood at the corner of his mouth. “I won’t move.”

 

Dick got up and scrambled down the hall, sliding on the carpet and rumpling it up. He started banging on Alfred’s door and shouted, “Good morning Al! Bruce got back from the secret China thing you won’t tell me anything about and I saw an’ heard him doin’ Batman stuff, I didn’t mean to surprise him, really, I just did because he looked awful—an’ he broke a vase and his hands are bleeding but so are his insides because I think he’s really sick, and he sounds like a human garbage disposal but if you broke it up real bad, so if you could just—”

 

The door swung open before Dick could bang it again. Alfred looked rather ruffled, beneath his blue nightcap, like an owl someone had dunked into cold water. 

 

“Heh. Uh. Sorry, Al,” Dick said. 

 

Al blinked, brows creasing together sharply. “Dear Lord, my boy, what has happened to your arm?”

 

Dick jerked, and looked down at the bloody edge of his sleeve, and the drying smear of blood. “That’s not me juice. That’s Bruce juice. He asked me to come get you.”

 

Alfred disappeared behind the door and returned a moment later with a black canvas medical kit, the one he’d pulled out when Dick had skinned his knees so bad trying to skateboard there were pieces left of his knee still on the asphalt driveway.  _ You’ve about taken your knee off, Master Richard, in our front drive and you’ve never returned with something more than a bruise in all your time as Robin,  _ Alfred had said. But he’d been smiling, that weird, distant smile he got sometimes that made Dick feel like there was a joke he wasn’t in on. 

 

“Where,” Alfred said, and Dick grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hallway and to the den.

 

Bruce was still slumped against the couch, but now his head was tipped back, baring his pale throat.

 

“I got Al!” Dick announced. “I went an’ got ‘im. Bruce? Bruce, you didn’t fall asleep?”

 

“I’m here,” he whispered, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Thank… you.”

 

Dick crawled back onto the couch and curled against Bruce’s side, while Alfred unzipped the medkit and set to work cleaning Bruce’s hands with antiseptic towelettes. Here and there, he pulled out a small shard of glass with tweezers. 

 

“You are very ill, sir,” Alfred said, quietly, after he had to stop so Bruce could cough into his elbow. 

 

“I hadn’t—noticed. I think… pneumonia. Coughing up blood.”

 

“Presumably this developed during your trip.” 

 

“Later, Al.”

 

You should have come home the moment you noticed you were ill.”

 

Bruce sighed. “I said  _ later, _ Al.”

 

“Nah, I think Alfie should tell ya off,” Dick chirped into Bruce’s chest. His hand crept across, pressed flat to Bruce’s sternum, feeling the ever-present, ever-solid  _ tha-thump… tha-thump… tha-thump… _ of his heart. “You were bein’ dumb. You shoulda come home. I missed you.”

 

A bandaged hand bumped against his shoulder, tugging him closer. 

 

“I will make a call to Miss Thompkins,” Alfred said, pinning the bandage on Bruce’s other hand and straightening. “I should not have to tell you to stay put, sir.”

 

“I’ll keep him here, don’t you worry,” Dick said, sitting up to look Alfred in the eye. He puffed out his chest. “Not even Batman can take on Robin! He tries anythin’ and I’ll report right to you, Alf. You’ll hear it from me.”

 

Alfred smiled softly. “I trust you, Master Richard. I will return shortly.”

 

Dick saluted Alfred’s retreating back and called, “Robin’s  _ on the case!”  _ which earned him a distant, British-sounding laugh.

 

Bruce was making a noise like a faulty exhaust pipe. “You’re ridiculous, you know that.”

 

“No, I’m actually cool. Cooler than you. By _ lots.”  _

 

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, but then his chest was jerking with coughs, one after the other, until Dick had to slide off him so he could sit up and cough some more. Blood spattered into the fabric over the crook of his elbow. Dick winced. 

 

When it was well and truly over, Bruce leaned back against the couch, eyes closed. 

 

“You look tired,” Dick said. 

 

“I am.”

 

Dick folded his legs beneath him, criss-cross-applesauce, but turned to face Bruce. He’d had an idea, and he could barely keep the grin off his face as he sang: “Is this the real life, is this just fantasy… caught in a landslide to… I forgot this part of the song so I’m just going to skip to the next part… any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me…”

 

Bruce cracked open an eye. “Are you  _ singing?” _

 

“You always sing me to sleep, so I’m singin’ you to sleep. Hush and let me sing my song.” Dick bobbed his head frantically, curls bouncing along with the inaudible beat in his head. “I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche—” here, Dick leapt up on the couch and shouted, “Fandango! Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening to me—” and then Dick flopped back to the couch, and leaned side to side with each repetition of the word, “Galileo.” But after that, the song cut off abruptly. 

 

Bruce watched him, bemused, in the sudden silence. “Did you forget the rest of it?”   
  


“There’s a lot of words!” Dick said, defensively. “And you’re supposed to be asleep.”

 

Bruce squeezed his eyes shut. “Hon-shoo… hon-shoo…”

 

Dick punched him in the arm. “You’re only faking it!”

 

“I hear a voice in my dreams… it sounds…  _ whiny…” _

 

“Shuddup,” Dick huffed, crossing his arms. “I’m not whiny, m’your conscience. I say you feel real guilty deep down because you didn’t get Dick a motorcycle for his birthday an’ now you’re tryin’ to call him whiny ‘cause of it.”

 

Bruce couldn’t hold back a wheezy chuckle at that. He grabbed Dick by the shoulder, pulled him close, and gently rubbed his knuckles over Dick’s scalp. It wasn’t as forceful, as Bruce usually did—a soft tug, just the barest graze of his knuckles. Weak as a kitten.

 

“Hey!” Dick shrieked, giggling. He didn’t try to fight to break away, however, because he relished having Bruce’s arms around him, relished knowing he couldn’t fall. “Hey!  _ Stoppit! _ You’re just mad because your hair’s already gray, old man!” And then Dick reached up to flick him on the ear. 

 

Bruce’s laughing turned again into hacking, and Dick waited for it to pass, pinned again at Bruce’s side, underneath Bruce’s arm. 

 

“I missed you,” Dick said, softly, while Bruce wiped the water from his eyes. “You coulda taken me.”

 

“I… Dick. You’ll know, one day, why I couldn’t.”

 

“I wanna know  _ now,” _ Dick said. 

 

Bruce looked down at him. He hadn’t shaved for a while so the lower half of his face was obscured by scruff, but if you wanted to read Bruce’s face you always had to look up at the eyes; today, they were rimmed by smudges of charcoal, blistered red veins in the sclera. But they were soft, and kind, and Dick suddenly had to duck his head against Bruce’s shirt to keep Bruce from seeing the way his eyes were watering. 

 

There was a whiskery kiss pressed to the back of Dick’s head. “I missed you, too, chum.” 

 

And maybe that, that one whiskery kiss and Bruce’s hand, tugging at his cape, keeping him upright so he didn’t skin his knee, maybe Bruce’s soft voice when he sand—maybe, for now, these things were enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> It's an extremely strong headcanon of mine that Dick can't listen to a song by Queen without singing and/or dancing along, and that this makes roadtrips with Dick marathons of how much Queen you can listen to before your brain is permanently in the Queen zone. 
> 
> Also, I am physically incapable of writing a sickfic without one bat trying to sing the other bat to sleep. Effectiveness and seriousness varies.


End file.
